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Hi everyone! This is a quick update to let you know what I’ve been up to.

First off, whether you’re a new or longtime reader at Personal Excellence, thank you for being here. Without you, PE wouldn’t exist — so thank you. You’re the reason why I do what I do.

I know it’s been a while. I’m sorry for the lack of updates for the past 5 years. Some of you emailed me to check if I’m alive and why there haven’t been any updates for a while.

The truth is, it’s been a very difficult past 5 years for me. There have been a series of things that happened, things that crushed me and that I was unable to write about then as I was still working through them (and still am, for some of them).

A quick summary of what has happened on my end (not in chronological order):

• I gave birth to my daughter (she’s now 5!) and stopped working to dedicate myself to full-time motherhood, without family help.
• We moved from Singapore to the UK, and had to overcome many challenges, from COVID lockdowns completely disrupting our plans for two years, to getting a job in a foreign land (my husband), to finding accommodation without a job, with a baby in tow.
• My mother-in-law became very ill and we became deeply involved in her care. She passed away after an 18-month battle.
• I became very ill with worsening health issues for the past 10 years, which led me on a long journey to search for answers after mainstream health professionals were unable to give me any. I eventually found out that they are due to toxic dental work, including mercury fillings and a root canal, leading to heavy metal poisoning and other issues.
• My husband had worsening health issues too, including neurological issues and severe chronic fatigue, that I closely supported him through. We later found out that his issues are due to toxic dental work as well, including mercury fillings.
• I faced persistent conflicts in my blood family that I later realized were due to a toxic family-in-law badmouthing everyone and sowing discord in the family.
• And then there was COVID, which made everything — be it raising a baby, caring for the ill, or moving to a new country — much more difficult than it already was.

Admist these extreme challenges, I had to step back from everything in my life and turn completely inward to be there for my family, to deal with the challenges with my entire being.

From raising a baby to caring for the ill to grieving the loss of a loved one, from tackling my own health issues to supporting my husband through his, and from living in constant uncertainty (whether due to the pandemic, dealing with unknown health issues, or moving to a new country without a job or contacts), it was an incredibly dark and difficult period in my life — as I’m sure it must have been for many of you in the past few years, especially due to the pandemic.

As my child now starts school and I juggle the duties of motherhood and work, as I work on my own health healing journey, and as my family settles down in the UK (a shoutout to the UK readers!), I’m excited to return to my life path and mission — supporting you in your growth. 🌱

I appreciate your patience all these years. Please know that for almost every day in the last few years, I’ve constantly thought about you guys, how all of you are doing, and the day I’d finally be back to reconnect with you and let you in on what’s been going on.

I really miss you guys and I hope you are doing well. I know that the world has changed a lot in these past 5 years The online space has changed a lot, with new blogs, new influencers, AI chatbots, etc. Some of you may have moved on to other websites during this time. I hope that now that I’m back, I can continue to support you in your growth — as I have in the past.

I miss all of you. But I’m back now. And I can’t wait to update you more on what’s been happening.

Some quick updates:

• I recently did a subscriber cleanout as it’s been many years and many emails are either inactive or defunct. Some of your email addresses may have been deleted by mistake. To ensure that you’re still on my email list, please subscribe here.
• I miss connecting with you guys. I briefly considered enabling blog comments, but thought it’s going to result in the same issues of spam and noise as before. Keeping reader communication via email is the best way to go for now (until I find a better approach), so join my email list so that we can stay connected. (Update March 2025: I just reenabled blog comments as a trial, so let’s see how it goes! Commenting will now be open for 90 days from the date of each post.)

I’m currently updating old content, as well as updating my foundational courses 30DLBL (Live a Better Life in 30 Days) and 30BBM (Be a Better Me in 30 Days), which I’ll share more in time to come. Once again, join my email list for all updates.

If there’s anything you’d like to see, let me know or join my email list and reply to the email there. I’m back and I can’t wait to talk to you guys soon. :)

Update Jul 2024: Thank you for your email replies, I’m very touched by your kind words and messages! While I’m not able to reply to every message, please know that I read it with love. If there’s anything you’d like to see, let me know here. Updates will be slow for the time being as I’m working on the upgrade for 30DLBL/30BBM — stay tuned!

Update Jan 2025: I just released the 2025 edition of 30DLBL, my 30-day program to live a better life. Read more about 30DLBL here, or if you are a past buyer of 30DLBL, learn how to get access here! More updates to follow!

Today, I want to announce the birth of my baby girl. :)

She is almost 4 months old now. :) She was born with the entire water bag intact, also known as an en-caul birth — which apparently is very rare and occurs in occurring in less than 1 in 80,000 births!^[1] Between exclusively breastfeeding her and taking on the new duties of motherhood, I haven’t had time to take a breather, but I hope to get back to updating PE and letting you guys in on what’s been going on in my life soon.

I look forward to sharing more in time to come, but in the meantime, just wanted to do this quick post to let you guys in on what’s been going on in my life. :) If you have any questions, or anything you want me to answer on PE, let me know!

(Images: Personal Excellence)

About two months ago, I deleted my Twitter account @celestinechua. I thought I should write a post explaining this as some of you have been asking me about it.

My Issues with Social Media

First off you guys know my stance regarding social media. While social media used to be a great place for authentic conversations, it has become a very “noisy” commercial ground now. When I use social media as a content publisher, I feel like I’m just one drop in a very large ocean, where my comments have no impact whatsoever. There are just way too many — think hundreds of millions of — content creators on social media these days, with many using bots, digital assistants, and agencies to tweak every aspect of their social media messaging, so that they can get the best engagement and ROI for their posts.

This is vastly different than years ago, say 2011, when I was having many authentic interactions with readers on Facebook and social media had not become the monster that it is now.

These days though, my notifications on Facebook and Twitter are either spam, some commercialized plug, or some pointless alert. It has become very tiring to log into my social media accounts each day with a bright red alert showing XX notifications, only to sieve through and see that they are pointless updates. I have talked about these issues here: Why I Deleted My Facebook Page, Challenges I’m Facing Today [Podcast], and Fear of Missing Out [Podcast] (I’ve since reinstated my Facebook page after deleting it in 2016, but I no longer actively maintain it).

This is how I feel when I log onto social media and my inbox every day for the past few years (Image)

My Issues with Twitter

In the same vein, Twitter has become a frustrating experience for me in the past few years.

To begin with, most readers of PE do not follow me there. Many readers of PE don’t use Twitter, while those who do don’t connect with me there. I think Twitter has a specific demographic and most PE readers are just not active Twitter users. Users who want to get my updates sign up for my mailing list (which is the official channel to get my updates btw — I post stuff that I don’t post here, including new courses and special messages). For anyone wants to send me a message, the contact form is the way to go.

Next, when I looked at my Twitter followers — about 7,000 of them — I realized that (a) this number has not been growing for the past two years, and (b) 99.9% of them are inactive or “dead.” “Dead” in that the users no longer use their accounts, or are following so many people that users like me who believe in tweeting less, not more, can no longer be heard anymore. Out of these 7,000, maybe only three people actively read and reply to my tweets (hi Charles, Ted, and Rick!). It became clear that my Twitter follower count has become a vacant number. While I was meticulously maintaining my Twitter account daily for the past few years and thinking that I was reaching 7,000 followers with every tweet, I was really shouting into a black hole.

Following this, I then looked at my Twitter messages. Over the years, I began to receive a high proportion of empty alerts, such as notifications of some company bot tweeting out my articles and tagging me, usually done to increase exposure of their business. Messages from content creators trying to network, expressing manufactured interest in what I wrote — but in reality trying to network to promote their site/product/service. Nothing wrong with that, but when I check Twitter, I’m looking for authentic conversations with people who read PE, not networking requests and solicitation. These are things that I’ve dealt with immensely for the past ten years, and I feel like I’m at a stage of my life (mid-30s) where I just want to focus on creating content and living my life, not battle the same things I dealt with in my 20s.

Note that this issue is specific to me rather than most Twitter users. Running a popular website has made me the target of an enormous amount of spam and solicitation. When I looked at my issues with Facebook, blog comments, contact form, and now Twitter, it’s the same thing — an enormous amount of spam, noise, and empty comments because of my blog’s visibility. While I used to get a ratio of 100% authentic messages to 0% noise in my messages, now it’s more like 0.01% authentic messages to 99.9% noise.

Frustration vs. Inspiration

After thinking about this, I realized that the fundamental problem is that the social media and internet landscape has changed enormously since I started my website.

Conversations online used to be authentic because people were using the internet in an authentic way. These days, the internet has become massively commercialized, while abusers have a huge amount of power due to the democratization of technology and automation tools.

The answer, then, is to use social media in a way that enables me. I asked myself: If this platform is making me feel so frustrated when using it, should I continue using it then? The answer was clearly a “no.”

To be honest, I felt a little surprised by my answer. Because having a Twitter account feels so basic, so essential today, something that every business owner must have. Every time you sign up for a new service, you will invariably be asked for your Twitter handle (and Facebook page ID). Not having a Twitter account is unheard of. It feels blasphemous. It feels like you are some backward business owner who is not in touch with his/her audience.

But is it true though? Because even when I was managing a Twitter account with “7,000 followers,” I didn’t feel like I was reaching anyone. Every time I tweeted something, I felt like I was throwing a coin into an abyss. I didn’t feel this way in the early years of Twitter — it’s only so in the recent years as social media morphed into some giant, monster entity.

These days, I feel like everyone is shouting at the top of their lungs and commercial businesses have unlimited resources to micro-optimize every aspect of their presence, and social media is no longer the right place for me to connect with my audience: everyday people without a voice, people whom I want to speak to and help.

In short, Facebook and Twitter were good ways to connect with my audience from the late 2000s to early 2010s, but not anymore as they have morphed into totally different beasts that favor quick engagement and short-form conversation. I’ve grown tired of navigating these platforms’ ever-changing layouts and guidelines for outreach (particularly for businesses), often spending an exceeding amount of energy to maintain my accounts with very little return.

The net conclusion of having a business account with these giants these days is that there are too many creators (many focused on profit over value) with elaborate teams and assistants hacking the algorithms and getting their content seen by focusing on what the social media giants want (rather than what truly helps the user).

What I’m interested in is creating long-form, deep content on important life topics, and these are just not well-suited for their algorithms and landscape today.

“Death by a Thousand Cuts”

In retrospect, I should have closed my Twitter account much earlier. I feel like this is a case of “death by a thousand cuts,” which I feel is very common in today’s social media world. When something is unpleasant, if the unpleasantness is on a very small level, you will usually tolerate it. What social media giants have done today is that they deliver many little cuts slowly, over a long period of time. Tweaking the platform little by little, changing the rules every other day, altering the algorithm in a way that builds stickiness for them (but creates user fatigue), inserting little ads everywhere, and just making changes that maximize profit rather than create value.

Since these cuts are delivered little by little, most people don’t observe this. They continue to use the platform every day, addicted to it (an addiction that is carefully engineered by growth hacker teams). At the same time, the users start to experience other changes in their life: decreased productivity, mental fatigue, a general feeling of emptiness, but they have no idea that these are linked to their use of such platforms. So they stay on, getting sucked deeper and deeper.

I find this issue with Netflix as well — I tried using it for the past month as part of a free trial from another service, and I find that it employs highly negative, dark design patterns meant to suck the user deeply into the platform. Not surprising since this is what many modern-day giants are doing.

When it comes to digital platforms today, figure out your needs and use them in a way that supports your needs, rather than the other way round where you change your life to fit their ever-changing rules and guidelines. I share more in 6 Tips To Deal With Digital Burnout.

Endnote

At the end of the day, I’ve spent the past few years trying to make sense of my relationship with social media and online tools. I don’t want to jinx this but I think I’m starting to reach a good place regarding this.

I have my Facebook page but I don’t actively maintain it anymore because of the reasons stated here. I no longer have Twitter and I’m happy to have gotten rid of it. As a Facebook personal account user, I use it in a way that supports my needs. I have my newsletter list where I can connect authentically with you guys, where I get authentic replies to what I send out (thank you to all of you who have been participating in my surveys and sending kind messages through the contact form!). There are still negative bad eggs every here and there, but I’ve come up with tools and ways to manage and minimize them to a near-zero instance.

In the meantime, I’ve been busy working on my next course (on how to discover your life purpose), based on your feedback to my email survey sent out a few months ago. I’ll be sharing updates via my email list when it’s ready, so stay tuned!

Check out:

• How Social Media Creates a Fear of Missing Out (And What To Do About It) [Podcast]
• Why I Deleted My Facebook Page with 20,800 Likes
• Closing Blog Comments at PE
• Closure of PE Forums

Hi everyone! Today I thought I’d do something different and share some of the challenges I’ve been facing in my business. I just want to share some of the things that have been weighing me down, and why I haven’t been sharing as much on the blog in the recent years.

In this episode, I cover

• Key challenges that I’ve been facing [1:01]
• My solutions to tackle them [15:37]

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Overcast, Castbox, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Personal Excellence Podcast

Challenges I’m Facing Today

Show Podcast Information

Read the transcript for this episode here.

If you find The Personal Excellence Podcast helpful, please take a minute to leave a nice rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast. Your rating makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to more people out there. Thank you! :)

Challenges I’m Facing Today [Transcript]

Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast. The show that’s all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua!

Celestine Chua: Hey everybody! Welcome back to The Personal Excellence Podcast. So today I thought I would do a different type of topic. Usually, I cover a topic on personal growth and I share tips on that. Today I thought I would do some personal sharing, and I’d like to talk about some of the challenges I’ve been facing in my business. I thought it would be good to share some of the things that have been weighing me down.

I did feel that I haven’t been able to do deep personal sharing on my site for maybe at least the past couple of years. As you listen, perhaps you may understand why.

Challenges I’ve Been Facing

#1. Feeling that my work doesn’t matter

The first challenge that I’ve been facing, and I think some of you guys may have noticed this, is that the web is so cluttered today. There are just so many, you know, businesses? It’s cluttered in a very commercial way, and I guess this is what happens when the main driving point of a society, the main agent that people need to work towards, is money.

I’m not trying to build any negativity around money because I think money is important and it is a good neutral tool for us to objectify value. I’m not of the camp of people who go, “Money is evil,” but I also don’t see money as the “end all and be all” of life, or that it accurately indicates the value that people are giving to the world. Money as a tool definitely has its issues.

So when the main agent that people work for in the world is money, naturally when you have a clean starting ground (such as the internet in the 1990s), it will get dominated by very commercialized activities after some time. And oftentimes it reaches a tipping point, and beyond that point, you get diminishing returns.

So I started PE in 2008, and way before that I started my first website in 1998. The Web was in its infancy with very very few people online. I’ve seen the internet and how it has evolved in the past two decades. Today, the internet is hugely commercialized — almost everything is linked to paying or buying or money. Advertisements are everywhere.

While everything has its role and its place, I do feel that the internet today is extremely cluttered with businesses for every single thing, along with “me-too” businesses. It’s gotten to the point where there are so many life coaches and coaches online now, that sometimes I do wonder, Oh okay. Err. So where do I fit in? And how does my work matter?

When I started PE in 2008, the reason I started it in the form of a life coaching business online was because there wasn’t necessarily something like this. At that point, yes, the industry was already competitive. There were many personal development blogs. But I felt there was space for me to add unique value after assessing the landscape.

Now it’s 2018. If I were to start everything from scratch with no legacy of my work in the past 10 years, based on how the landscape is today, I would do things differently. Maybe I would start a multi-coach platform, like a platform that gathers coaches from all around the world or that consolidates the best minds to help others grow. This is just something I’m making up; it’s not something I’ve been thinking about. What I’m trying to say is, if I were to start something from scratch, I’d think, What is the most unique value I can give? And the biggest change I make in the world?

So for me, over the years what made the most sense is for me to keep building my legacy and make changes in people’s lives through my platform, articles, etc. And I’m very satisfied by that. But right now, I’m seeing like a gazillion of coaching businesses and life coaches. They’re just everywhere and I’m sure everyone is adding their unique value. But it does make me feel like my work doesn’t really matter anymore. Like, Why am I doing this? And can my energy be better used elsewhere instead?

So this is just something that comes to my mind every now and then. Because of how cluttered the Internet is today, and because I feel a lot of the “make money online” or “start your online business” businesses negatively encourage mass numbers of people to just jump into the industry without really having the motivation to truly help people at the core, if it makes sense to you.

#2. Lack of privacy

The second challenge that I’ve been facing would be privacy. I don’t know if you guys know, but I’m actually a very private person. I share all my personal stories on PE because I see that as a necessity. It’s not because I like to talk about these personal things. If there wasn’t this driving force to help others, I wouldn’t even talk about any of those things at all because I value my privacy a lot.

So when I started in 2008, obviously nobody knew me. I was just a random person. Over the years, as my blog grew bigger, as I developed clientele, etc., I did feel that I lost quite a lot of my privacy.

… And… this sounds depressing but it’s not. It’s not that depressing, okay? But I did definitely feel like I lost a lot of my privacy. And it’s like the world is blending together.

Imagine you have different friends, like friend A, friend B, friend C, friend D. So maybe you will say certain things to a friend because that’s your special relationship with friend A. And then you say certain things to friend B that you may not tell friend A. Because that’s your special relationship with friend B.

So I have PE, and PE is no longer just a medium that I share stuff with people to help them grow. It’s no longer just that because there are just so many people reading today. And I actually don’t know… I mean I don’t know most people who are reading PE. And that would include people who may know me but I don’t know that they are reading. Or people who know me but I just don’t know them. It also includes my relatives. You get the idea.

I think this is a unique position because unless you have a large front-facing public platform where you share a huge, unprecedented part of yourself and your life to the world, typically a person wouldn’t be in this position. For the same reason, I found it hard for me to share about this with anybody (except for Ken). Because nobody could relate to what I was going through. And this is such a unique situation and problem.

But it was at the same time very taxing, and very much something that had been weighing me down. Along with this issue, is the lack of privacy in terms of my personal space and my personal life, because as more and more people knew about me, I felt like I needed to create this personal alcove that I could hide in and be safe from the prying eyes of the world or from the attention of people.

For a while, this was true in terms of communication channels too, because a lot of the communication channels today are created with the objective of making it easy for people to communicate — to the point of not respecting the individual’s privacy. For example with WhatsApp, people can just add you and message you as long as they have your number. You don’t need to get authorization. Or let’s say for Facebook — anybody can see and search people by their name. You can’t hide your profile from Facebook search. This is just how these conglomerates have decided to design their services.

That works, I think, for the majority population. But for myself, it became quite a challenge, especially in the past years, to find a way to use these tools. A way that would benefit me and serve me in my personal life, while not alienating myself from my own inner social circles? So there was this pretty tough balance that I had to find.

Another problem, along with the growing presence of my site and just generally people reading it, was that I needed to be significantly careful about the privacy of the people that I’m with, or the people around me. So as opposed to guessing or wondering, Is it okay to write about this or that? I would often err on the side of caution and not write it at all. Because so many of the things that I write, and what really helps me connect and support all of you guys in your growth, is me sharing my personal stories and my personal life, and I felt like I couldn’t write any of that anymore.

So I felt like I was reaching a stalemate or this juncture where I couldn’t write anything. With that came a pause in my writing, because if I had so many restrictions on what I could write and couldn’t write, then I might as well not write. This made me focus on the other aspects of my business because this was such a challenging issue to work with.

#3. Not drawing boundaries

The third challenge that I’ve been facing is… when I started PE, it was in my 20s? I didn’t draw any boundaries. PE was this core goal in my life and it still is.

But because I didn’t draw boundaries and because of how the Internet sort of just exploded, with all kinds of people using it and things changing all the time every single year, there were constant changes, new things, new developments, needs, people’s needs. It’s like you’re in this gel or this sea, and there’s nothing separating anything. And when you don’t draw the boundaries or when you start off not drawing the boundaries, it just consumes you and it did that to me for a while. When I started the business it was fine. And I think I’m an organized and a very structured person, with a very high tolerance for punishment as well as stress. So all these were not issues. But when the business became so big and I was dealing with so many different people and everybody has their own unique needs, in the later years, it just consumed me.

So I could be dealing with people with all kinds of needs. It could be, say, with Person A who signed up for coaching before and then maybe they thought they would get unlimited (free) followup after the sessions, even when the sessions are over. Or it could be, say, with Person B who bought a product in 2009, and it has already been 10 years and then every year they would keep asking to redownload the materials because they lost the files or they didn’t bother to back up the materials.

A lot of this treads on a very thin line, because with each person you obviously want to go the extra mile and help them, because you just want to do that.

But when you’re dealing with thousands and thousands of people, that’s when not drawing boundaries becomes really tricky, and it’s something that quickly creates burnout and a lot of pain. Or exhaustion later on, especially when you’re going above and beyond. On top of this, people expect you to go even above what you’re giving. So it became a give-and-give-and-give situation and that quickly drained my fuel tank. I was running on empty in the later years of my business.

#4. More sophisticated internet landscape

The fourth challenge is that as the Web became more sophisticated, I’m now working with a huge audience with different needs. Maybe I’ll write an article and share it via the newsletter. Maybe 60 percent of the people would resonate with it and 40 percent wouldn’t. And for the 40 percent, because they see that this material doesn’t resonate with them. Some people will stay on because they are long-time readers. Some people will be more impatient and they will leave, and I’ll lose that chance to support and help them.

So there’s this constant struggle like, What is the best thing that I can write, that would help me reach out and help as many people as possible? The system that used to work in earlier years of the business doesn’t work as well anymore. Because the internet is so sophisticated now — everybody has different needs and people expect things quickly and to get answers right away. If they don’t, then they become impatient and leave.

And also, as the web is now so sophisticated, everything is very specialized. You have all kinds of services for a lot of things and each service now requires a recurring business expense. So expenses have definitely gone up. Which is fine if you are using things that adding value, but you have to iterate really quickly as a business owner.

So these are just some of the challenges that I’ve been facing in my business and I think these challenges are partly due to several factors. Firstly, the web landscape changing so much over the years. Another reason would be the maturity of my business. Part of it came from PE as a business/company growing to the size that it is today.

Solutions to Tackle the Challenges

Now with every challenge in life, there is always a way we can solve them. It’s the same here — finding solutions to solve the challenges or at the very least, mitigate them until we find better long-term solutions.

So here are the things I’ve been doing to manage these issues.

#1. Draw boundaries

The first one is a big thing, which is learning to draw boundaries. I’ve been doing this since late last year. This is so important for me. Drawing boundaries in terms of e-mail — having separate inboxes for my personal mail and my work mail. Believe it or not, when I started (and I think this is true for most entrepreneurs), I used my personal inbox for my work mail as well. Since then, I’ve learned to have separate inboxes for my work mail while my personal mail is purely for my personal stuff and exchanges with my family.

Then work mail, to check the mail during work hours, and maybe sometimes a little bit after. But not checking it or feeling like I need a reply every single hour of the day, because then that will quickly bleed into my own personal life and my personal space, and that’s just a recipe for burnout.

Drawing boundaries in terms of my communication channels. I feel that Facebook had a big role in my struggles with communication channels — and this requires a totally different podcast episode, on my issues of Facebook. But I feel like with communication channels or social media channels today, they are pretty hard to draw boundaries in terms of your own life and how you want to manage communication. But I feel like I’ve found a good intersection or a good middle way in how to manage my communication channels.

#2. Objectify my work

The second thing is learning to objectify my work. So this is challenging because PE started out as an extension of my passion, my purpose, and as a deeply personal part my life. It still is and forever will be.

But I’ve learned to not take things personally. So be it when there are really oddball situations at work, and you’re wondering, Why do people behave this way, or How can people abuse my goodwill? Learning not to take these things personally and to just to move on and focus on the positive stuff. Because there are all kinds of weird stuff in the world. There are also weird situations and weird people, and it’s really not worth it to focus on these 0.01 percent oddball situations or people who don’t appreciate or value your work. But learn to focus on the rest of the 99 percent or 99.99 percent of people who do.

#3. Focus on unique ways for me to add value

The third thing that I’m doing would be to focus on the unique ways that I can add value. So as you guys know, I have never believed in writing repetitive material. I think that there’s a place for this and that’s why there are quite a few websites that specialize in rehashing a lot of tips and they do well. They do well, they grow big, and they have a huge audience.

But I just don’t think that is the kind of value I want to add to the world? Especially because I feel like even though some of this may add incremental value to someone’s life, it is adding a lot of noise too. And I just want to focus on really sharing things that I feel has the biggest impact, the biggest value, as opposed to churning a lot of content, churning a lot of stuff for the sake of it, which I feel may benefit me marginally but is just adding noise to the whole ecosystem or the community on the Internet. I don’t believe in that.

So focusing on high value-content content that really makes a difference. And courses as well. This is something that I’ve been working on and you guys will hear more about that in time to come.

#4. Hiring help where needed

The next fourth thing that I’m doing is hiring help when needed. Hiring help can be in terms of hiring assistants, outsourcing, and help doesn’t have to be work-related. It can be in terms of personal life. Personal life, like, get a helper or people to help me with personal things so I can focus more of my energy on the bigger areas of my business. Help can also come in terms of getting the products or services that value to a business. Help doesn’t necessarily have to be hiring someone, but about engaging services or getting products that can help to cut down a learning curve or help you to speed ahead or solve this burning problem area.

This is something that a lot of my clients do when they engage me for coaching, to discuss with me or have me help them in certain blockages or a problem that they’re facing. And that helps them speed ahead and just cut so much of the learning curve, and the hours and the time that they would have spent running around in circles.

#5. Focus on what I can share

The fifth and last thing that I’m working on is privacy. Focus on sharing what I can do. The issue of privacy and feeling like there’s a certain filter or that I’m under some kind of censorship, I think it’s part and parcel of having a platform that’s now bigger than what it was when I first started. Also recognizing that everybody has their own privacy and personal space. It’s about learning to manage all of these. Finding that fine line between managing everyone’s personal space and respecting each other’s privacy, and doing it in a way that can add value to people’s lives and help change and forward them. So I think being clear on, okay, there are certain things that I just won’t talk or share because they are just out of bounds. But I can share other things. And these other things that I focus on sharing. I can also share by proxy as well, such as using certain examples or giving case studies by proxy. And these are all different ways that I can help others.

So no longer feeling, Oh because I can’t share certain things, I can’t help people in the best possible way. That may not be true, because I can just do things in a different way to achieve that objective which is to help others grow. Connecting with you guys and supporting you guys in your growth.

Closing Note

That’s it for today’s episode. I hope you guys have found it useful in some way. I definitely am planning to record more podcast episodes. If you like the podcasts and you would like to hear more, I’d really appreciate it if you can post a review on iTunes.

Now if you have a question for me, you can send it to the podcast page on PersonalExcellence.co. There’s a link for you to post a question there. So thank you so much for listening and I’ll speak to you guys soon. Bye guys!

Endnote: Thanks for listening to The Personal Excellence Podcast! For more tips on how to live your best life, visit www.personalexcellence.co

Hey everyone! Following tradition, today I’m excited to share with you my year end review for 2016. My objectives are to let you know what I’ve been up to, share my plans for the new year, and hopefully inspire you to do the same. As we usher in the new year, I hope you can make time to review your past year and set your goals for 2017. :)

Overall, 2016 has been about simplifying for me. Simplifying my work, simplifying my business, and simplifying my life. I just read my 2015 review before writing this post, and I’m glad to say that I’ve moved in line with my previous plans for 2016 (and perhaps some more), and I’m really excited at what 2017 is going to bring.

The Online World

Perhaps I can start off by saying that I got really disconnected with the online world this year. Firstly, there’s the amount of negativity and noise online today as half the world now has internet access. Given that empty vessels make the most noise, and errant and negative people are more likely to react than not, noise basically forms the bulk of online messages today, even though noisy people tend to make up just a small proportion of the overall population. Many internet forums have also become echo chambers, so they are not exactly good places to learn about the world anymore.

Secondly, the online industry sort of morphed into this huge commercial marketplace between 2010 and 2015 where everyone jumped in trying to sell courses and create branded sites. Back in the 1990s when I first started making websites, creating a website was about creating, sharing, and the work at hand, with commerce being a secondary goal. But today, making a quick buck online is the main reason why people even start websites, and the online marketplace we see today is not even a meaningful one — aside from some businesses/people selling meaningful products/services that truly help the world, the rest is just random noise as people are selling all kinds of courses/products/information trying to capitalize on whatever knowledge they can, when skill building and adding real value should be our topmost priorities.

The sad part is the boom of the “make money online” industry as some people buy into the idea of quick online success and riches. This has led to the meteoric rise of online gurus who grow rich by preaching this message, and sell overpriced products claiming to teach people to do the same. But it’s not possible to achieve the same kind of results, not in the same way, because

1. A few years in the online world is like a lifetime in the real world. Tactics that used to work in 2010 will not work in 2013; similarly tactics that worked in 2013 will not work in 2016. Most of these folks are just teaching outdated tips, packaged with frills and marketing snazz, that will not help you succeed. Some actually manage to make themselves appear very convincing when doing so, especially to the layman without real insight of how this industry works.
2. Many of these folks selling the internet dream had the first mover advantage; it’s partly why they could grow so fast. They also capitalized on a time when people became interested in earning money online, which led to the huge influx of online coaches/gurus/internet businesses. But a new entrant today cannot grow in the same speed with the huge number of competitors today, because there are 10,000 times more people fighting for the same market share than before. Once again, the tips that these people are teaching and packaging as few hundred/thousand-dollar courses are totally outdated and not determinants of success.
3. The market has consolidated since 2010 and market leaders have been formed. Many of these market leaders today have professional teams that help them maintain their competitive edge; these people need them or they can’t stay ahead. The online world has gotten a whole lot complicated between the late 2000s and today as the tech has become much more sophisticated and complicated (e.g. websites today are much more sophisticated than in 1998; video editing and podcast editing are like basic skills now; a typical blog needs over two dozen plugins and “hacks” at least to somewhat work the way you want with the different layers of complexities and needs online today). Most of this information is conveniently left out in the marketing pitches of these “gurus.” The truth is people can’t just start a blog/vlog now without a fair level of tech savviness and expect reasonable levels of success; being successful online today is a whole lot more than just “having a laptop and a dream,” or even being tech savvy, or writing good content, or even having a team of staff for that matter.

I have talked about these things before (plus some more), so I recommend to check out:

• 5 Harsh Truths About Blogging (And 6 Tips to Start an Online Business) [Podcast]
• Are You Looking For a Magic Bullet For Your Goals?

Ex-life coach and blogger Rebecca Strong perfectly captures what I see as issues in the life/business/blog coaching industry today: Life Coaching For Life Coaches: Why I’m Quitting

Simplifying

The above affects me in a few ways:

• As a web user, many websites I come across today are just empty shells with no real content. Many are just mazes of pre-sales funnels. Nothing wrong with sales funnels, but if your entire site is just this and any information you have is just hooky stuff to sell, sell, and sell, etc. that’s a problem right there.
• As a coach, their marketing messages negatively influence the people I’m trying to help. I have clients and course participants who buy into these magic bullet claims, and I have to work on re-educating them. But it’s not so straightforward as it’s a whole marketing machinery and industry driving this message. I dislike seeing my students and others being led around in circles by folks more interested in closing the sale and padding their top line than what’s right for people, because ultimately the people who suffer in the end are those who buy into these claims, not the people receiving the money or people at the top.
• As a blog owner, I began receiving a large amount of spam starting from the 2010s. This was when the whole “make money online” dream exploded as lubricated and catalyzed by these make-money-online folks, and over-zealous, hungry blog owners began blasting larger blogs with all kinds of sales pitches, boilerplate requests, and clickbait messages to market their sites. These are the people who collect your email address, blast follow-up messages, and circulate your email to other people in the field, who then do this all over again.
• As a business owner, it’s not enough for me to just create high value content. I now have to compete with clickbait and short-term content catering to the monkey mind — sadly effective in today’s ADHD world — and appeal to the hearts and better selves of my subscribers. And with social media sites like Facebook now choosing noise over other metrics, it’s harder than ever to spread my content and drive the message of deep, conscious growth.

So after months of swirling in the above and thinking, I decided… I want no part in the above. My answer is to return to basics. To simplify everything, and to go back to building my connection with you.

So since August, I have

• Axed many of my online accounts. I deleted my Yahoo, Flickr, Linkedin, and reddit accounts and Facebook page in October. This simplified my life by a lot. Read: Why I Deleted My Facebook Page with 20,800 Likes
• Removed all non-core areas of the PE website. This includes the PE quotes section, which got chopped off in November. For perspective, PE quotes contributed to 1.7% of PE’s total pageviews but took up about 50-60% of my mental energy when it came to site maintenance (WordPress multi-site works differently from single sites), so it was clear that it had to be done. This also meant shutting down PE Forums in August which had run its course.
• Removed all non-core products/services. I retired my Blogging and Passive Income courses in 2015 even though they were earning me good income and I was doing very well with them. I retired the PE Book this year, one of my best-selling products, after 6 years of launching it. I retired my Self-Esteem webinar in Oct though past customers can still access it. Doing so has removed a chunk of my income, but I want to focus on building the right foundations first before thinking about money later.
• Simplified the entire PE website, both in coding and design. I launched the brand new PE layout a month ago. Hope you guys like the new look! :D I have designed it to be much cleaner and content-driven.
• I am now returning to the basics: connecting with you guys directly through my blog and scale-based channels, and building up my courses thereafter. I’ve been updating my old articles, and will continue to do so in 2017. I also released a new edition of Live a Better Life in 30 Days in December (over 100+ new pages, with many new examples and sharper writing) which I’m very proud of. I’m now working on a new edition of Be a Better Me in 30 Days and hope to be done next month.
  
  (Past 30DLBL buyers who missed the upgrade mailer in December, you will get another chance to buy it when I release the new edition of 30BBM, so stay tuned!)

As for everything else, I decided to just ignore them. With regards to web surfing, I now practice conscious surfing as detailed in my Feeling Disconnected post. I don’t visit low consciousness sites, forums, or news sites with biased writing anymore. I enjoy using Quora to get alternate views, though Quora can be an echo chamber sometimes. Make money industries will always be there as long as people believe in quick results for little work, and I decided not to care anymore as people who choose to believe in magic bullets will simply do so, and there’s nothing I can do but focus on my own thing and keep sharing and educating the world and my readers, clients, and people in a positive way.

My other highlights this year include switching to a new, better webhost; launching The Personal Excellence Podcast; simplifying other parts of my business; coming up with solid anti-noise measures for my business; and re-designing my sales pages to fit the new web 3.0 look.

Simplifying in Personal Life

With this simplification came simplification in my personal life:

• Minimalism. Ken and I started practicing minimalism after being inspired by videos like this and this. We don’t have much stuff to begin with but we managed to pack a huge luggage and a trolley of clothes, books, shoes, old items, food, etc. and donated them to charity this month. We don’t plan to buy any new things from now on, except for productivity and living. We plan to use our money for growth experiences, not to buy stuff and more stuff.
• Travel. Minimalism will make it easier for us to travel from now on. Ken and I traveled for 4 months this year in Eastern Europe (Serbia and Hungary), and I was in Ubud for a month this year, so I was almost away for half the year. I really enjoyed the time away and gained a lot of headspace to do productive work (and hence my above conclusions and plans).
• Remote living. We are looking into simplifying our life. Our home country has become incompatible with our beliefs over the years — too much noise and noise pollution; obsession with materialism; endless focus on earning money and working endlessly (at the expense of personal health and relationships; Singapore has one of the longest working hours in the world) to earn more money for things and more things that do not stop increasing in prices; limited individual freedom; etc. In the short term we are looking at a remote lifestyle as we travel to different parts of the world. We have planned our travels for 2017 and are starting as soon as January. I can’t wait!! :D
• Waste. I have been working on reducing waste. When I was in Serbia and Hungary, I appreciated how the countries are relatively less wasteful than say, Singapore. For starters, in Budapest, they don’t give plastic bags in shops, and it’s good because it gets people to bring their plastic bags, rather than collect all these bags (or even plastic boxes, cutlery, etc.) and throw them away later. I’ve been practicing little lifestyle changes like bringing my own handkerchief (over using paper napkins), bringing my plastic bags, and bringing my lunch box when I order takeaways. I find this much more meaningful than earning more money to buy more things and throw away more things and just wasting in general.
• Diet, Health. I have further cleaned up my diet. I now know the core food groups I need to have a well-balanced, fully nutritional diet, and how to prepare quick, nutritious, yet tasty meals. This simplification has made it very easy for me to eat healthily despite the very unhealthy local food culture.

2017 Goals and Plans

In short, 2016 has been a year where I cleaned up my business (and life) and rebuilt core foundations for an easy path ahead, so that I can get back to what matters. It has been a year where I came to head with the key noise channels in my life and dealt with them by either eliminating them or changing the way I do things.

I’m really satisfied with my new direction — to simplify rather than to keep up or add more — and look forward to getting back to basics and creating more great stuff for you guys. :D

So these are my broad goals and plans for the new year:

1. Focus on scale. I will continue to update old articles like I did in December, while creating new content. My priority is articles > podcasts > videos. I need to figure out exactly what I want to do with videos because I didn’t create a single one in 2016, but for now I’ll focus on articles and podcasting because they are much more compatible with my working style.
2. Finish up the new edition of 30BBM. Once I do, I’ll have more headspace to write new content, since all my energy is going into the book now. I hope to finish it by early 2017. Soon, soon!!!
3. Courses. I didn’t do any live course in 2016, and it was deliberate as I wanted to figure out and fix the site fundamentals before looking into courses. In 2017 I’ll be looking at how to take my courses forward — whether to continue or stop them, to have many short courses or a few major ones, adequate price points to make it worthwhile for me and potential students, etc.
4. Travel. Ken and I will be traveling and exploring the world. Our goal isn’t to rapidly cover many places but to enjoy, experience the world, and of course to get work done along the way. We look forward to this being a fulfilling, productive, and growth-filled experience. ♥
5. Health. I’ve been reading about Blue Zones (read here, here, and here) and studying how I can incorporate the different aspects of these zones into my life (and Ken’s life), if not relocate ourselves to similar places to maximize our quality of life. Blue Zones are the 7 places in the world where people live markedly longer and healthier lives than others, and I recommend you read the links above to learn more and see how you can apply the lessons too as I want us to live as long as possible. I’ll be looking into this further as we travel in 2017.

With this simplification, it means the ability to move ahead fast rather than being tangled in all those messes. And I’m really excited at what’s to come. :)

I want to thank you guys for sticking around all these years. :) THANK YOU, THANK YOU, and THANK YOU. Thank you for being patient and sticking around even though updates got slow in some months this year. I’ve been working hard to fight battles behind the scenes and getting things sorted out — and now they have. :) For the new visitors, welcome to Personal Excellence and I hope you’ll stay with me in the months and years ahead. :) Look forward to connecting with you guys ahead! :)

And You?

How has your 2016 been? :) What are your goals and plans for 2017? Spend 30 minutes to do your review and set your goals for the new year! Read:

• Why I Do Year End Reviews (And 6 Questions for Your Review)
• 58 Resolutions For Anytime in the Year

For those of you looking to start 2017 on a strong start, check out Live a Better Life in 30 Days (30DLBL). It’s my 30-day course where you get to answer hard questions and work on important, Quadrant 2 tasks to live a better life. It’s perfect to do at the end, start, or middle of the year, though you can really do it at any time.

Long-time PE reader Charles just started working on a new run of 30DLBL. Check out his 2017 vision board here after working on Day 4 of the program; I love it! :D

Read more about 30DLBL here: Live a Better Life in 30 Days

Hi everyone! Last month I deleted my Facebook page with 20,800+ likes. To be precise, I deactivated it, but the page is as good as gone now. In this post I share why.

My Problem with Facebook

The truth is that Facebook hasn’t been adding value to me as a business owner. While I had previously deleted my Facebook account in 2011, it was because I was using the Facebook personal account which was the wrong tool for my business. I then switched to a Facebook page which resolved the issues I was having, such as creating segregation between my work and social life and going past the 5,000 friends limit.

But in the past years, I feel that Facebook has changed from being a potentially great platform for good content and discussion, to now a negative seeding ground, a place that promotes very low-level content, and even a seeding ground for fake news, a recent hot topic due to the 2016 US presidential elections.

Why has this happened? As a page owner, my biggest gripe is that the Facebook algorithm has degenerated over time to focus purely on engagement, sans quality. Engagement meaning likes, comments, and shares. When a post generates many likes/comments/shares in a short period of time, Facebook regards it as newsworthy and “pushes” the content out to more people.

On the other hand, if your post doesn’t get enough likes/comments/shares in a very short amount of time, its reach gets depressed. This is why if you have been a Facebook page owner since 2010, you would have seen the organic reach of your posts plummet from 100% to 1-2% over the past few years.^[1][2]

The Problem with Using Engagement as the Key Metric

What’s the problem with using engagement to assess a post’s quality?

The thing is that engagement is a good measure of a post’s value when everyone takes time to read/think through each post that appears in their newsfeed.

But nobody has time to do that today. We live in a fast-paced world today. People are constantly frustrated due to living pressures. Anger, fear, and envy dominate our society. We are constantly pressed for time. Distractions are everywhere and stimuli are constantly blasted in our faces.

As a result, many people use Facebook for a quick escape, not to think. Many people use Facebook when they are bored and don’t know what to do, which entices them to engage with very simple content such as memes and selfies, rather than long-form information.

As a result, the most highly-engaged content on Facebook these days is usually content that provides some distraction and escape, content that triggers uproar or indignation, and content that scratches an itch. NOT content that pushes you to think about the hard topics of life and your personal goals. NOT content that engages the higher faculties of your brain, such as research, long-form interviews, and innovative ideas.

This means that

• When a highly edited selfie and a blog post are put side-by-side, the selfie will generally win based on Facebook’s algorithm, because it doesn’t take much thought to process a selfie.
• When fake news with an absurd title and a real news story with a “boring” title are put side-by-side, the fake news will win. Because fake news is able to elicit quick reactions due to its absurd headline. Case in point: NY Times shared how a recent fake news article got 350,000 shares on Facebook in just one day. This fake article subsequently got reposted on Reddit and got the attention of real journalists. The corrected followup received barely any attention.^[3]
• When a short tips post with the same few repetitive tips and a long-form article with comprehensive and unique content are put side-by-side, the quick tips will win. Because short-form content is easier to process for the average Facebook user.

To add salt to the wound, Facebook intentionally limits the reach of content that links outside of its platform (like a blog post or a YouTube video), because it wants people to stay within its “walled garden.” This means high-quality external blog posts and videos are difficult to spread within the Facebook community. This creates an echo chamber, where Facebook users are just echoing and seeing the same few thoughts and ideas, rather than actually seeing new content and ideas from outside of its platform.

Not to mention, many Facebook users who engage with a post often do not read the post.^[4] Most users just “like” and comment based on the few words in the headline, based on their assumption of what it means. I have experienced this with my posts, where people criticized my content when they didn’t even read the post. This means the posts you see on your Facebook newsfeed are generally upvoted based on people’s knee-jerk reactions rather than their actual value.

Which leads to my main problem: I feel that my site direction and content are not compatible with Facebook’s anymore, at least not with the way their algorithm works today (as of 2016).

1. I have no interest to write posts just to get a rise out of people. Many reactions are noise, not an indicator of a content’s ability to create change.
2. I do not wish to deal with 2-3 second reactions to my writings.
3. I don’t care if people “like” or comment on my Facebook posts. I just want people to think about how my tips apply to their life, which may take days, sometimes weeks or months, not minutes to an hour. I also hope for people to pass my articles on to their friends/family if they found them useful.

But when Facebook heavily depresses a page’s reach unless it can gain engagement within an hour or so, and automatically depresses external content, it’s a huge problem for me. When your posts aren’t “engaging” a big pool of people quickly (based on likes/comments/shares), your next post will reach even fewer followers. To the point where you reach nobody.

To reach more people, including the very people who “liked” your page to get your updates, you need to pay to use Facebook’s “Boost” feature, a type of Facebook ad. But why? You have worked hard to earn these people’s “Likes,” and now you need to pay to show them posts that they signed up to see in the first place? That’s just a circular way to get you to keep paying Facebook and be trapped in your dependency on them!

And as Facebook’s algorithm keeps changing based on what generates the most profit (because Facebook’s goal as a publicly listed company is to maximize profits), the organic reach for good, externally-linked content will continue to decrease. Facebook just generated its highest earnings yet in the last quarter (Q3 of 2016)^[5], and this is in the face of growing user fatigue.^[6][7]

Evaluating Your Facebook Newsfeed

It’s the same when it comes to the content on your Facebook newsfeed. Most of the posts are there because they get people’s reactions the fastest (selfies, quick tips), trigger the most emotions within minutes (social injustices, outrageous news), and/or tickle people’s fancies (like cat videos). It’s not based on their real value.

Which means you need to ask yourself: Are you okay with constantly receiving content that’s upvoted and put in your newsfeed based on few-second reactions, or are you looking for something deeper when you use social media? Because in the former scenario, you will keep seeing noise, get a feeling of user fatigue, and have an unhealthy draw to the platform, because the updates you keep seeing do little to change your life. This is why you constantly return to Facebook more often than you should, in a quest to get something more, to fill some sort of gap.

As a Facebook page owner, I can’t help but feel like I’m in a merry-go-round, where I’m pushed to write content in a way that gets the most reactions, just to reach the very people who subscribed to my page to get updates in the first place.

This is not what I want. Rather than engage in noise matches, I rather focus on creating deeply thought-out content and serving my readers who want to read and implement my material. My goal of managing a platform isn’t to create stickiness, which focuses on making a user stay at a website beyond what is needed. My goal is to give them the information they need to think and act. IMO every Facebook page owner should focus on creating content that matters, not engage in like/comment matches to get more engagement and exposure, which usually means nothing as the average Facebook user flits through updates. Even if you do get a lot of engagement after much effort, it’s questionable whether your views are quality views and from the right people.

So I deleted my Facebook page. As the issue has been brewing for years, I guess this is a long time coming. The problem became so ridiculous that running my page had become more time-consuming and painful with little for me to gain as a business owner. There were other signs that contributed to this decision, such as ongoing spam, pointless analytics, and an increasingly cluttered admin layout designed to push you to buy Facebook ads. There were also pointless, endless notifications that prompt you to buy their ads and alerts that you can’t opt out of.

The fundamental issue is that I created my Facebook page to connect with you guys, but I can’t even do something as basic as this now without going through hoops and being blasted with noise. I would much rather build my relationship with you through my website and newsletter, where I know my emails will always be sent to you, where I know those of you who are really interested to follow my updates will be reading my emails, as opposed to being subjected by an algorithm that filters what I want to share with you.

How I Use Facebook as a Personal Account User

Now the issues I mentioned above are specific to a Facebook page for businesses/personalities. As a private Facebook user who deliberately has zero connected friends, I find Facebook quite useful. Their chat messenger is handy, especially after they finally released an option to disable push notifications permanently. Unsolicited messages go into a different tab so I never see them. I don’t have any friends connected so I’m free from filtered newsfeed content based on Facebook’s noise-driven algorithm. I only join groups that I want to be a part of and leave when they’re not a fit. I check people’s profiles directly to read updates if they are public. I message personal friends directly to see how they are doing, not rely on the newsfeed to get a faux connection.

Just to be clear, Facebook’s algorithm works well for certain content. Basically, content that elicits reactions or drives discussion, short tips, simple advice (even when it’s the same thing repeated over and over), short quotes, people’s stories, selfies, and posts that trigger uproar, criticism, shock, or emotion.

But beyond inspiring quotes and simplified advice, I think what the world needs now is deeply-thought-out material that tackles big questions and big issues; not oversimplified content or content that caters to the monkey mind. I have no wish to take part in noise matches but to be my path to serve and connect with you.

As to why I deactivated my Facebook page instead of deleting it, it’s because Facebook can always change. If it becomes a positive ground for sharing conscious discussions and deep content one day, then I’d be happy to rejoin as a page owner.

If you used to be on my Facebook page, do subscribe to my newsletter to get my updates, including messages and special announcements that I don’t post on the blog.

Some other posts where I wrote about today’s noise-filled world:

• Feeling Disconnected
• Busy vs. Productive: 7 Tips to be Productive, Not Busy
• Online Negativity: How To Create a Better Internet for Everyone
• How Social Media Creates a Fear of Missing Out (And What To Do About It) [Podcast]

Update – June 2018

As some of my readers get my blog updates via their Facebook newsfeed, and as Facebook does provide some form of connection and vague credibility for a business owner, I have reinstated my Facebook page. I do see some vague improvements in how Facebook works after the fake news saga (from the 2016 US presidential elections) and growing user complaints.

However, the problems that I mentioned above still exist (spam, noise, absurdly depressed organic reach, the inability for long-form content to travel well), and because of that I no longer invest my time into growing or maintaining my Facebook page. I leave my Facebook page online and use an automated service to feed my blog updates there, but otherwise, I don’t actively check, maintain, or put in an effort to improve my page anymore. Instead, I focus on building my blog, connecting with my users via my newsletter, and building my community in a way that I feel adds real value and impact to the world.

In the same vein, I just deleted my Twitter account which I share more here: Why I Deleted My Twitter Account With 7,000 Followers

New layout for Personal Excellence

This new layout is already live as of today, November 21, 2016 — so if you’re reading this post on PE now, you should be seeing it. If not, clear your browser cache. If you’re reading this message in your inbox or feed reader, check out the new layout now by surfing over to personalexcellence.co.

In total, this layout took me about one full month to design and code, including the creation of graphics, though I started working it since 2 months ago. It’s custom coded by myself, so you won’t find it in any theme directories. Several things different about this layout vs. the previous one:

• There’s no longer any sidebar. This was a hard call I made to reduce clutter and focus on content.
• The colors are cleaner, with white and black serving as the base colors and maroon as an accent, whereas maroon was the base color in the previous layout.
• There’s only one top navigation bar now, whereas there were two previously.
• The overall layout is more visual, with each post/page having an image banner. The main site sections all have a custom image banner now.
• Our logo is now just “Personal Excellence” without any image or symbol. Again, this is part of simplification.
• This wouldn’t make a difference to any of you, but I’ve coded this theme much more neatly than before, and also in line with recent HTML5 standards and WordPress features. This will make updating easier moving forward, which means more time for the things that matter.

Comparison:

Old layout – from 2009 till 2016

New layout as of Nov 21, 2016

Like with the previous layout, the new layout is mobile responsive and can be viewed on PC and mobile devices, though it will obviously look best on larger screens. If something looks wrong, let me know. I may continue to tweak things here and there, but this is pretty much the final look.

In creating this new layout, I also took time to rewrite several sections:

• The About section has been rewritten and features a new design. Do check it out! :) I share my story, why I created PE, and how PE works.
• The Privacy Policy has been majorly updated to reflect our information collection and usage practices. Please read it to familiarize yourself with our data collection practices.
• The Courses section now features a personal message from me, with a new look.
• We have a new Videos section which I plan to update with new videos in time to come.
• Media section — I’ve organized my past media features into TV, Radio, and Print medias for easy browsing.

All in all, my goal in creating this new layout is (a) to have a clean look that cuts through the clutter of today’s online world, (b) for me to easily maintain and update the site, (c) to make it easier for you to access my best content. What do you think about this new look? Let me know via the Ask Celes form – I’d love to hear your thoughts! If you see any issue or something that looks wonky/wrong, let me know via the form too!

New Host, New Server, Better Security

In other news, I’m excited to share that we are now with a new host and on a dedicated server! :D My previous host has become unreliable in recent years, and after researching online and realizing that it was a company-wide issue, I decided that it was better to switch hosts before things got worse. PE was also becoming incredibly slow with frequent downtime even though we were operating well within server limits, and after many months of trying to diagnose the issue and getting unhelpful solutions from my host, I thought it was best to just switch to a new host and move from a shared VPS plan to a dedicated server with lots of room for traffic spikes.

The result: everything is now lightning fast compared to before. I’m able to do site tweaks, troubleshoot, and post content much easily. If you’ve been surfing the site in the past months, you should notice a speed improvement now compared to two months ago!

I’ve also secured the entire site with SSL — secure sockets layer — to enhance the security of the site, plus taken other security and anti-spam measures. You will see that PE’s web address now shows up as https:// in the front instead of http://. This means that all the data that passes between your browser and our web server will go through an encryption process, which significantly increases the privacy and integrity of the data.

All in all, the server upgrade alone has doubled our hosting overhead to several thousands of dollars a year, but I see this as a necessary investment to give you the best site usage experience and to expand and grow PE moving forward.

New Release: Live a Better Life in 30 Days

On a separate note, I’m excited to announce that the new version of Live a Better Life in 30 Days (30DLBL) has now been released! I’m excited to launch this in time for you to do the program in December, as a year-end roundup. :D

• For those of you who haven’t gotten the program, head over to my newly revamped 30DLBL sales page to read about 30DLBL and get it there. The new version is already live, and if you bought the program on/after November 16, you already have the new version.
• For those of you who already have the program, I’ll be giving a free upgrade to recent buyers and a limited-time upgrade option (for a fee) for older customers. This announcement will only be sent via the PE newsletter, so subscribe here to be on the list. I will be sending out the email update on Thursday (Nov 24), 8am Singapore time, so stay tuned for the mailer after you subscribe. I will not be resending the mailer after that.

Next up, I’ll be working on the new version of 30BBM, and hope to release it by the end of the year. Like with 30DLBL, very recent buyers will get the upgrade for free, so if you like, you can get both 30DLBL and 30BBM now for a 10% discount (scroll down to the end of the 30DLBL sales page for the link) and you’ll get the upgraded version of 30BBM free when it’s out.

Thanks everyone for your support! :) I’m still alive and am working hard to lay out the best foundations for the site, rather than participating in the echo chambers of the online world and entering into a meaningless cycle of frivolous updates. I hope that you guys will see the payoff in time to come. Thank you!

Hi everyone! Today I have a sad announcement to make regarding the PE Forums. After almost 6 years of having the forums (the launch post here in October 2010), it is with a heavy heart that I announce the closure of the PE Forums. For most of you, this update won’t be relevant — if so, just skip this post. Otherwise, continue reading.

I’ve already announced this in the forum over a month ago to give everyone enough prep time, so for those of you who have been visiting the forum, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. If you are a forum member but haven’t visited at all in the past months (or years for that matter), you can read this update first, then hop over to bid your final farewell before the forum closes on August 31, 2016.

PE Forums, The Beginning

Maybe we can have a walk down memory lane first. :) The PE Forums was launched in Oct 2010. Prior to starting PE, I have managed web forums before and felt that having one would be a great addition to the site. Forums are a great way to build a community, and I wanted to provide a platform where PE readers could connect with each other. Besides PE Forums, there were many things that I launched between 2010 and 2012, like the Ask Celes column, PE challenges, PE courses, PE manifestos, PE quotes, and so on.

Building a forum, much less a successful one, isn’t easy. You need to invest a lot of time to foster the community. You need to be heavily involved in the discussions, at least at first, to encourage everyone to speak up, get comfortable, and set the tone for future discussions. You also need to create a fun platform where everyone wants to join in and hang out. There is, of course, the moderation work involved too.

So I invested a lot of time in building up the forum in the beginning. From customizing forum templates, to deciding on the sub-forum topics, to researching/installing special features like a “profile wall,” a “buddy/friend” system, and so on, to troubleshooting issues, there was much work that went on behind the scenes.

The forum user base grew steadily. I tried different ways to increase engagement, including integrating PE challenges with the forum. This worked well, though it was also very tedious as I had to do a lot of back-end work to ensure that the usage experience was seamless. Since forums are more of an “advanced” web user tool, continually trying to get non-users to use the platform meant having to deal with basic user problems too, like basic technical questions, teaching users to post threads in the right places, etc.

If I remember correctly, the forum usage was at its peak during the Healthy Living Challenge in 2011. During that time, there were over a hundred users actively posting per day! It was extremely exhilarating to see everyone’s journals and their healthy living journals; I remember thinking of plans to bring the forum to the next level if this growth had continued.

Evolution of the Web; The Rise of Social Media

But over the years, the forum activity began to dwindle. While integrating challenges with the forum helped boost user numbers at first, most users would stop using it after the challenge was over — sometimes mid-way through. The reality is that most people were only there to participate in a challenge, not to engage in a forum, so it made sense that most would leave after that. Such integration also hurt the participation of the challenges, since it’s not as easy for the average reader to follow forum activity vs. blog updates.

Yet beyond this, the bigger trend happening across the web was the rise of micro-blogging platforms. While independent forums were fairly popular in the late 1990s and 2000s, the emergence of social media and micro-blogging tools like Facebook, Facebook Groups, Twitter, and Instagram meant that people could now easily get their voices heard and connect with others on their own. There is now a lesser need for people to hang out at a specific web forum when they can just connect with others using their own social media profile. Interaction began to happen primarily on these social media platforms rather than on blog-hosted forums.

Around the same time, the web exploded in users and along with that, content channels and web businesses. Suddenly, there is so much to do online, so much content, and so many sites vying for your attention. The internet switched from a place where people quietly hung out and immersed in every site they visited (1990s; early to mid 2000s), to a bustling marketplace where you are now bombarded with messages left, right, and center. The average attention span online became much shorter (it’s now 8 seconds; congratulations to the new era of humanity -_-) and people began to use blogs more to get the information they need vs. to engage.

These 2 factors combined meant that people started to ween off blog-hosted forums and use social media tools for engagement, if they even used the former to begin with. Around the net, blogs became information dissemination tools and even sales channels, rather immersive verticals, which further drove such behavior. Many blog-hosted forums began to shut down: some due to inactivity, others due to the amount of work needed to keep things going.

Spam Issues

At the same time, a separate issue emerged. Spam. The PE Forums received a massive spam attack a month ago. Hundreds of spammy posts were unloaded onto the forum over a span of 2 days, through a whole bunch of different user accounts, registered using different IPs (probably proxies), all authenticated through spammy hacks.

Sadly, this hasn’t been the only serious spam problem I’ve encountered since starting PE. The truth is that spammers, or rather spam bots, have been trying to attack PE every single day for years — not just the forum, but everywhere else on the website. As PE is a high traffic website, it naturally draws the attention of many spammers who hope to leverage on PE’s traffic for their spam. Our newsletter forms, blog comment forms (which I closed last year), my social media pages, and our forum are just some of their targets.

With regards to the forum, in recent years, we have been getting trickles of spammy posts on a weekly basis and large spam attacks every few months. Each time, my assistant Lina would help me clean up the spam posts while I would review and tighten our anti-spam measures. Yet, blocking them has always been a cat-and-mouse game, where I’d research and implement some measure to block out the spammers, after which they’d try to attack in a different way, after which I’d have to research and implement another method to block them out, and so on. It never ends, because spammers will always find ways to bypass your anti-spam measures. It’s basically human vs. human.

The massive spam attack a month ago got me to seriously think about the future of the forum. Not only did it create a lot of cleanup work, it also created pesky issues that affected other aspects of the business. One, Google’s search engine banned our site thinking that we were a spam site (the spam posts were, after all, posted on PE). This ban was lifted after I wrote in to them, but not before waiting for several weeks for their reply, and not before seeing a traffic dip (which is still in effect and will recover in time, but this is creating real impact on the PE business, our revenue, and so on). Two, after years of dealing with this spam problem, it has become very draining to deal with it anymore. The spam issue hasn’t remained the same or reduced through the years despite the increased security measures; it has increased because the forum is now a bigger target for spam than ever, and more spammers are online now than before. Managing the forum has begun to feel like I’m dealing with a ticking time bomb that may explode in my face at any moment, which it did a month ago. All these time and energy could have been better spent into higher value Q2 stuff for my business, but they weren’t.

And all this said, there’s also the usual work that goes into managing a forum. This work includes moderation (which Lina and long-time PE reader Mel help me with), technical maintenance (to ensure the code is working fine, that there isn’t any broken stuff), customization, answering user questions, and more. The PE Forums is a free-to-use forum so it doesn’t bring in any revenue, just costs. While there are ads in the forums, they don’t bring in money as forum users usually don’t click ads. This isn’t an issue though as I had never intended the forum to be a revenue generator. The issues that I mentioned above, however, are real ones.

Shutting Down the Forums

In light of these factors, I realized that it’s time for the forum to go. The reality is that it has been inactive for a long while. For the past 2 years, we have gotten at most 3–5 active users per month, and about 1–2 active users per month in recent months. This is about 0.01% of the daily user traffic at PE. Yet, whether it was for 1 user or 10 users, I strove to keep things going for as long as I could. Even if it was for one user, I wanted to provide them that safe place to post about their goals and journal their life’s progress.

But I think it has reached the point where the costs of running a forum are too overwhelming for me to ignore, and the cons now significantly far outweigh the merits. Keeping the forum afloat has caused me to neglect other activities where I can create far more value to you guys, such as working on a new course for example (the last time I held a live course was a year ago). I’d like to focus on the basics of basics from this year onward, which would be to create value for you guys in the most scalable way, through my articles, podcasts, and courses.

It’s sad for me as I’ve done so much to build up the forum and keep it going, as have many of the members who have selflessly contributed their wisdom and thoughts through their postings. I’d like to apologize if the closure of the forum will be any inconvenience to your own self-journaling journey, and hope that you will be able to find a replacement tool, such as a private online blog or a journaling software, to continue tracking your own progress. I hope the forum has provided some value to you guys in the 6 years it’s been online — I know it has for some of you, based on your feedback — and hope that you have gained something that you can now take away with you, moving forward.

I’d like to take this chance to thank certain people. To all of you guys who registered and contributed to the forum’s activity, be it all the way back in 2010 or even a few months ago, thank you. You guys know who you are. To Lina and JadePenguin who have been helping me moderate the forum for the past 2 years, thank you. If not for your help, I think the forum would probably have shut down much earlier. To the forum regulars in the past 2–3 years — Lina, JadePenguin, Apu, Mario, Stacey, and Sejal, among others — thank you for your beautiful sharing. Thank you. :)

The forum will close on 31 August, 3016. I hope this will give everyone enough time to say their farewells, save their own journal threads if they like (I’ll be taking the whole forum offline once it’s closed), and exchange contacts with one another. All information will be lost — member info, threads, etc. — so please save and reach out to your forum buddies before then.

Thank you everyone for your support, and I hope to continue to create more exciting, great value stuff for you. I also wish to embark on a path that’s different from the noise-filled, me-too, and short-form stuff that has become typical of the internet today. The internet today has enough noise as it is, with enough people screaming for your attention around every corner. I hope to do something different and do things that are further the value chain and gets you thinking, vs. most of the material out there today that’s about entrenching you in states of fear, desire, greed, lust, or even just creating a “feel good” factor but in the end doesn’t help you to change or act on your life. I hope you’ll stick around PE and allow me to work with you in your growth. Thank you. ♥

(Image: Personal Excellence)

This is a quick update to let you guys know that I’m retiring the Personal Excellence Book. (Update July 1, 2016: The book is now officially retired.) The Personal Excellence Book is an ebook compilation of the best articles on PE. Over the years, I have released 2 volumes (so 2 ebooks in total), with each volume having 101 articles each for a total of 202 articles. These articles were published between 2008 and 2012. PE Book is the first product I’ve ever sold on PE and it’s one of the best-selling products in our lineup. We have sold over 3,200 ebooks to date!

Why am I retiring PE Book then? Truth be told, it was getting very exhausting updating the product. I have never publicly mentioned this but I spend several hours, sometimes a few days, updating PE Book every month, ever since it was launched in 2010. Because I’m always making changes to the articles on PE, be it grammar updates, image changes, minute text updates, and so on), that means that the material in PE Book needs to updated as well. While at first I’d make the changes immediately, subsequently I switched to batching, where I would track all the little changes in a text file, after which I’d transfer them to the two ebook volumes once a month. This whole process is incredibly micro, where I had to hunt for the article using the Control+F function, look for the changes in each 1,000-page ebook, edit them, arrange them nicely, export the PDF (which takes a while because it’s a large book), login to my product server, and then reupload them. As you can tell, this becomes very tedious very fast. And I have been doing this for 6 years.

Some of you may wonder: Why not just continue selling PE Book without updating it? While I can do that and it’s certainly the easier way out, I don’t want to. Since PE Book is meant to be a compilation, I’d prefer that it accurately reflects all the content live on PE, at least at the point the customer buys it. I feel it’s the right thing to do. And while I suppose I can hire someone to do this, there are usually many minor changes that are difficult to relay to a third party without there being some sort of miscommunication or misunderstanding. It then becomes a cumbersome process of trying to spot and correct mistakes of what are really small changes to begin with. Not to mention, hiring someone means additional cost, which needs to come from somewhere, be it raising the product price or otherwise. The question then comes to, “Should I even be allocating resources to an activity that is highly micro with little output?” It became clear that it’s a “no.”

There’s another reason too. Since releasing PE Book Volumes 1 and 2, I have written about 400 new articles. Originally my plan was to create a new volume of PE Book every 2–3 years so that readers have the option to purchase my best articles in each time period. But after seeing all the work required to maintain Volumes 1 and 2, I held back from releasing Volume 3 and eventually scrapped it. Given that PE Book is meant as a compilation of my best articles, but I’m only putting my best articles from 2008 to 2012 in the books, I eventually felt a disconnect selling the product. It’s not that the articles in PE Book aren’t good — they are, all 202 of them, covering golden topics of personal growth and the result of my blood and sweat of my first 4 years of PE. It’s just that I also have other in-depth articles, building on what I’ve written in my first 4 years, that I’d want to sell in a compilation too, but it’s just realistically not feasible after seeing all the back-and-forth with the first 2 volumes. And I believe this disconnect would only become bigger as the years pass, when I have more and more new articles not inside the compilation, while I need to spend all this resource and energy maintaining something from so many years ago when I could be doing something else.

At the end of the day, I think the idea of a compilation book is great as it’s useful to have a handbook of the best articles in a blog, neatly organize in a beautifully designed ebook that one can read on the go. Many customers of PE Book have told me that they found PE Book very useful. In fact they have read articles in the book that they didn’t even know were on the site — because the PE website has so many articles that it’s easy to get lost in the site sometimes!

Just some past testimonials of customers who got PE Book:

“Hi Celes, I received my copy on Monday and let me say I was blown away. There is so much high quality content in there (over 800 pages) that I’m only one quarter of the way through and I’m already improving my productivity on my business by miles!

Really, for the price of this you have totally over delivered. So if there’s anybody out there who’s wondering if it’s worth it or not. It totally is. This book has helped me increase my productivity, overcome barriers and gain confidence thus boosting my personal and business performance. In fact, I’ve increased my (business) turnover by 30% in the past two weeks!

Thanks for the excellent work Celes and your writing style absolutely rocks. Helps me read and absorb the info so easily.” — Bailey Ing, the UK

“One word, stunning! Not sure if you’ve ever seen TPEB (The Personal Excellence Book) in iBooks on an iPad. If not, I can assure you it is a reading experience second to none. First, the appearance with all the graphics, color scheme and font choices is visually appealing. Second, the detailed Table of Contents (TOC) makes it easy to quickly go to a given subject. For me, TPEB is not the kind of book you read from front to back. Rather you read topics most relevant to you at any given time. The TOC makes this happen. Though I just downloaded, I can clearly see the strength of the book is its content. Far more topics are covered than like books and they are done in a practical manner.

I hope this feedback is useful. Normally I wouldn’t be compelled to spend the time doing so, but I’ve been so impressed with the work you’ve done with the book and your website, I figured it’s the least I could do. Please pat yourself on the back for me. :-) ” — Steve

“Dear Celes, Thank you for the wonderful book. I have one word to describe it…”SUPERB”. It is an excellent tool which i will use to enhance my personal and emotional skills, gain focus in life as well as discover more meaning in my life overrall. Your blog is awesome but many times i am unable to get to all the articles but composing them into this wonderful ebook has made it so much easier to read and practice your words. My main problem is that i am a perfectionist, and also have high self-doubt and your book with all its tips and easy-to-use guidance is an amazing resource. Your wealth of knowledge and experiences that you share with others is beyond the words i can find to thank you! You are awesome and i will definitely recommend this book to my friends and family. Keep up the great work and i look forward to your blog and another book soon ;) “

Best wishes and hearty thanks,
Ashna (Davis, California)

“I have been following Celes’ site for some time and was hence very eager to get her book. I’ve found the book to be captivating and inspiring. I’ve been reading through the book and it’s really great and just what I needed at this point in time. A huge resource at over 2,000 pages, the content is well- organized and easy to read. It is not a book about just theories and concepts – there are exercises and practical tips which you can instantly apply, and Celes also shares her own personal experience. Celes has really inspired me to think about my purpose and reassess my own goals. Definitely a great book to have and I recommend it to everyone.” — Ishwari, Mauritius, Africa

“The Personal Excellence Book is a goldmine of tips, articles, and quality writing to help you live a better life. So far, I’ve read the first ‘Purpose and Meaning’ section, and have gained from it immeasurably. The first chapter is about 50 pages long and is worth more than the book’s price alone. Celes’ tips are – unlike many other similar sites I’ve read – actually practical, and can be put to use right away in everyday life.

“Not only that, but I’ve communicated with Celes personally and can honestly say she is one of the most lovely people I’ve ever spoken to. Celes is an inspiration to me — positive, sincere, honest, and funny. Summing it all up, I’d say that Personal Excellence Book could probably be the most valuable purchase I’ve ever made – don’t hesitate to buy it a moment longer.” — Jack, the UK

“The Personal Excellence Book is what I’d refer to as the “Road Map” for my personal development. There are two parts to maximize personal development of each individual. First part is “the concept” and second part is “the execution”. This personal excellence handbook closes the knowledge gap between concept and execution, especially the part of selfreflection tools. e.g. Life handbooks, How to discover my life purpose. These tools really work and make me understand myself in the new level.

Thank you for creating this excellent book and congratulations to this success to create this album. This could be perceived as your red ribbon project in my eyes.” — Kasiwoot, Thailand

But in terms of implementation, it’s not feasible as it’s a compilation of content that is updated almost every week. One thing I didn’t expect is that I would update my articles and old articles so often. While most blogs would post content and leave it as that, I believe in regularly revisiting my articles to keep them timeless. This means having to update PE Book every few weeks/month, which makes me feel like I’m forever stuck tweaking a product from the past as opposed to moving on to other, bigger projects. If there’s a way to automate this process, I’d have done, but there isn’t (not that I know of).

So it’s time to say goodbye to PE Book as I pull it from the PE product lineup this month. It’s sad as this is a product I have put a lot of sweat into creating and maintaining, perhaps more so than some of the products, but I think retiring it and letting it go will pave the way for other higher value products to come. I have just updated the ebooks for the last time before I officially pull it off the shelf.

Revenue-wise I’ll be cutting away one good revenue stream (just like when I retired Blogging Success Program and Passive Income System), but I think this is something that has to be done as I focus on new plans.

The Personal Excellence Book, Volumes 1 and 2. My best articles from 2008 to 2012.

Update July 1, 2016: Thank you everyone for your final purchases before the retirement of the product! Many of you have shared very nice comments, thank you! Here’s a note I got from reader Joan,

“I have been your fan for years….. so glad to get the whole works…. worth every penny. Love ya…” Joan Sheldon, Calif ♥

Thank you and your support means the world to me. :) I believe that this will free up more mind space for me to focus on creating more higher value products for all of you. Love you guys! :)

Hi everyone! :D Today I’m super excited to announce the launch of the Personal Excellence Podcast!

So for years, I’ve been writing articles at PE and creating content for all of you, but I’ve never created a podcast — until today. After getting requests from some of you and also thinking of my plans ahead for PE, I decided that it’s time for me to start a podcast so that I can better serve all of you.

Listen to the first episode, where I share why I’ve created this podcast and what you can expect in the episodes ahead.

Thank you! :D

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Overcast, Castbox, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Personal Excellence Podcast

Introducing The Personal Excellence Podcast!

Show Podcast Information

Read the transcript for this episode here.

If you find The Personal Excellence Podcast helpful, please take a minute to leave a nice rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast. Your rating makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to more people out there. Thank you! :)

Hey everyone! :) We’ve now reached the end of the year — how has your year been? Are you looking forward to 2016?

Initially I was thinking of not writing a 2015 year-end review (and possibly stop my public year-end reviews), as I wasn’t sure if anyone even followed my reviews. But a PE reader, Jessica Gonzalez, recently sent in a comment saying that she is looking forward to reading my 2015 review, which surprised me as I hadn’t mentioned anything about writing a year-end review on PE this year. The only way someone would know would be if he/she is a long-time reader who followed my past reviews, so thanks, Jessica! :) If writing this would matter to even one person, then yes, I’ll continue to write my annual reviews on PE, at least for this year. :)

Overall, I’d say this year has been a year of distractions and health concerns. But first, let me start with the positives.

2015: Positive Highlights

My first major milestone this year is actually a financial one. During the start of the year, I set a personal goal to hit six-figures in my business revenue (I stopped announcing monetary goals since 2014 because I feel money is the result of giving value, and since this result is not always immediate, it then becomes pointless to give it a yearly deadline). I’m happy to say that I’ve achieved this goal this year. I haven’t done my final accounting as the year isn’t over yet as of this writing, but based on current figures, my annual revenue is up by at least 40%, and my profit, 50%. This is despite retiring 2 of my lucrative product lines, Blogging Success Program and The Passive Income System, as I didn’t feel they fit with my long-term vision for PE.

To me that’s great, as that means more cash reserves for future plans, be it hiring help, buying new equipment, or perhaps migration. This achievement is actually long overdue as the income I was earning was quite “low” considering PE’s reach or the value I’ve been giving, largely because I’m not sales-driven as much as I’m value-driven. I had originally set this monetary target as a personal challenge, both as a coach and business owner. I felt that in order for me to effectively coach other business owners to achieve business excellence, I needed to first achieve this as a personal milestone. I’m glad to have now done so. :)

Now that I’ve realized this goal, I plan to return to big-picture goals like content creation and course building. This may well cause a dip in my income next year since I won’t be focused on short-term gains, but I believe that as long as my big-picture focus is right (to give value and help others), everything will sort itself out.

My second positive highlight is seeing more clients and course participants through their transformations. With my focus on income building, I’ve also been spending much time on courses and coaching. With this, I’ve witnessed many major transformations in my coachees this year. Just to name a few…

1. a course participant who, after procrastinating on weight loss for over 10 years, has lost 7.5kg (16.5lbs) in 2 months
2. a client who, in just 3 months, started a new book project, wrote all her book content, secured a publishing deal, and is publishing her new book next year — and she is a first-time author!
3. a client who discovered her passion and is working on switching careers to an entirely different field;
4. a client who, after many years of being troubled by a negative past, has finally let it go and is now living as her true authentic self;
5. a course participant who, in just 3 months, started her business to help girls with needs and has swiftly built her blog with a budding readership despite her day job and family commitments; and
6. a course participant who, after 11 years of procrastinating on her self-healing, has achieved all-round transformations in her career, health, and family relationships, plus has 2 job interviews waiting for her!

To me, their amazing transformation is merely a taste of what’s to come in the years, decades ahead. And I look forward to seeing more great changes ahead. :)

My third highlight is my PA (personal assistant). After being overwhelmed with work for a while, I finally hired a PA in March. Now, I’ve actually been hiring help since 2011 by way of contractors and a VA agency. While helpful, I found outsourcing tiring after a while as I had to continually brief and re-brief people every time there was a new task, since outsourcing is transient by nature. I soon realized that what I really needed was a single-point of contact, a PA who would support me in a series of tasks while competent enough to pick up new skills and grow as my business expands.

In comes my assistant Lina. She is actually a long-time reader of PE and has been following my work since 2012. In fact, the whole process that led me to hire her was really serendipitous — she was contacting me for advice one fine day (on an unrelated matter), and after some exchanges, I saw an opportunity to hire her. Subsequently, I set up a simple work arrangement between us and she has been an amazing help. Come next year, I’ll be having her on part time to take on more tasks, and I’m excited about that. :)

2015: The Downs

Along with the ups, there have been downs. On the personal front, this year has been fraught with health sagas. I had a record number of hospital/clinic visits this year, either for my mom, dad, or myself (but more for my parents than me). These were not “positive” visits like visiting the hospital in preparation for a baby, but “negative” visits where you follow up on symptoms/ailments that may turn out to be serious issues — and has actually turned out to be so in some cases. My mom, in particular, has been diagnosed with several health problems. Both my parents also had to go through a surgery this year (my dad broke his collarbone at work which I mentioned in this post). While everything is fine for now, next year will see more treatment visits and possibly uncovering of new issues, which I see as a natural part of old age. As for me, mine were follow-ups on symptomatic signs that turned out to be nothing (in fact got a very good overall report for my health), so all is good.

The second “down” point I’ve experienced this year is overwhelm from all the connections I’ve built since starting my blog. I wrote about this in my 2014 review (under the part on distractions and Dunbar’s number), and was dismayed to see that I’ve been fighting the same thing this year. The truth is that during the past 2 years, I’ve begun to feel like my life isn’t my life, and that as long as I’m alive and awake, I’ll always be expected to read, tend to others’ requests, emails, messages, questions, comments, etc. (I’m not talking about course/coaching emails which are part of my work). A part of me feels obligated to tend to these due to my life purpose; another part, afraid of disappointing others if I don’t reciprocate. This has unfortunately led to much unhappiness and misery as I no longer have my own life or time to work on my own Q2 goals, including the mental space to write new content. This is something I wish to change as of 2016.

The third thing really isn’t a “down” point as much as it’s an issue to be addressed. Now that PE is entering its 8th year, it’s no longer just a blog or coaching business, but an online business with multiple arms and layers of complexities. This has caused me to be pulled in different directions with different responsibilities. No longer am I just the coach or writer — I’m also the CTO, CEO, COO, editor, producer, marketer, coder, administrator, designer, and content creator. Coupled with the fact that the web landscape isn’t static (no business landscape is) and there are more changes than ever with the huge influx of web entrants in the past 5 years, these have kept my hands full with background operations and plans on how to keep PE relevant and at top quality, many of which are not visible to the blog reader.

While most business owners will start to hire people and set up teams at this point, I’m not sure if this is a business model that I aspire to have. Ultimately, my passion is to help the world, not to manage people and deal with turnover/recruitment/managerial issues so that I can help the world. Most importantly, I believe it is possible for me to scale up my operations with a very lean setup (i.e. with myself and 1–3 assistants), without having to hire a big team of people. More on this in my plans for 2016.

Last but not least, the death of my cat, Nancy, was a saddening event. Even though Nancy has passed away for more than 11 months, I continue to miss him from time to time. His death — along with several other events this year — made me realize that often times, the death of someone really causes the most pain to the living, not the person who died. This made me realize that much of our pain regarding the dead is often a reflection of our own pain about what we feel we’re missing as well as our own views regarding life and death vs. something that reflects the true nature of death. Death, at the end of the day, is a natural part of life (just like illness), and when we stop resisting it, we can then start to live more fully and in the present.

My Plan for 2016: Returning to Scale

As 2016 approaches, my direction is clear:

1. Return to scale-based work. This means focusing on content creation, course building, and anything to do with building PE as a platform.
2. Remove anything that requires or demands 1-1 attention, so that I have the mental energy and time to focus on the scale-based stuff.
3. Prioritize my own needs and health (including being there for my loved ones). This year, I realized that I have sacrificed much of my health in trying to be there for everyone and anyone, and I can’t do this anymore now that I’m in my 30s. In a way I’m glad to realize this when I’m 31, and not when I’m 40 or 50. Hopefully my past self-neglecting actions (like sleeping late) haven’t created too much damage on my health.

With these 3 guidelines,

1. I plan to return to creating more content. Because I believe in quality over quantity, and every article (and video) takes me a lot of time to write (and produce), I think one article or video every week would be a nice target.
2. I won’t be doing 1-1 coaching anymore, at least not in terms of individual coaching packages. I’ve removed my 1-1 coaching page since June and I’m wrapping up the last of my 1-1 coaching engagements in the next month, after which I won’t take on anymore clients.

   Why remove 1-1 coaching? For years I was flicking between having 1-1 coaching and not having 1-1 coaching, and each time I would justify reopening for new clients by increasing my rates (to commensurate the opportunity cost involved). Yet, I’ve come to realize that at the scale I operate my business, it’s difficult for me to continue 1-1 coaching without raising my fee to an exorbitant level. The reality is that 1-1 coaching comes with a very high level of customization, tailoring, and follow-up, and when a client signs up for my coaching, they aren’t just paying for my time — they are paying for results, transformation, and dedicated support. Hence, whenever I opened myself up to 1-1 coaching, I wound up devoting a lot of my personal time and energy into each client’s case, time that would get taken away from say, running a new course where I could help 30 people simultaneously, or writing an article that could benefit 10,000 people in a week. Ultimately I really enjoy working with people be it at a 1-1 or group level, but if I stay true to my bigger mission of helping everyone in their growth, it’s clear that I need to return to group-, scale-based mediums to help others and remove the 1-1 channels.

   This doesn’t mean an end to all things 1-1 though, as I may integrate 1-1 coaching into my live courses as add-on tiers. Meaning, a limited availability, 1-1 coaching tier where live course participants could pay an add-on fee for 1-1 calls that would build on the live course experience — similar to what I did for Soulmate Journey and Anti-Procrastination in 2015. This could work as it’d add synergy to my live courses, as opposed to standalone 1-1 engagements which stood independently from my projects.

3. With the distancing from 1-1 coaching, I’ll be focusing on course building. For 2016, I plan to build a new, self-administered members portal for my current courses — and along with that, upgrading my existing video courses (this upgrading will be a 2-year long project though, since I have a handful of courses). Ultimately I wish to move away from live course, and for me to do so, I need to create a very comprehensive and immersive course experience that anyone can easily follow through without my teaching live. This is something I’ll be working on in 2016, starting with Anti-Procrastination Program.
4. On the business front, I’ll be adopting new systems and processes that’ll help me manage PE more effectively. In the past month I’ve registered a new newsletter service and bought a comprehensive list-building plugin that I’ll be implementing in 2016. If all goes well, they should make it easier for me to analyze and improve on my list building methods.
5. Last but not least, I’ll be safeguarding my personal priorities and space. As the internet becomes increasingly noisy and cluttered, and as I become connected with more people by way of my blog, I no longer have the time or energy to deal with individual communications without being mentally exhausted in the process. What I really need is a “gatekeeper,” someone to help me screen and separate the wheat from the chaff, as I regain my focus on the things that matter. This is where my assistant comes in. This year, I’ve already been having Lina manage my emails, social media accounts, and messages, and this has helped me free up mental space to focus on other things. Next year I plan to have her be more involved in PE’s operations as we explore the areas she can add the most value, and this is going to help me in points #1, #3, and #4 above.

In short, 2015 has been a personal year of realignment and regrouping, and for 2016, I hope to get back to increasing reach and creating more great content through articles, videos, and courses, and supporting all of you in your life’s journey. :)

How About You?

How about you? How has your 2015 been? What are your goals and plans for 2016? I recommend you to spend 30 minutes to reflect on your year and write your plans for the new year — it’ll be worth it, I promise. :)

Check out these posts as you do your year-end review and set your resolutions:

• Why I Do Year End Reviews (And 6 Questions for Your Review)
• 58 Resolutions For Anytime in the Year

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Hey everyone! Today’s announcement may come as a bit of a surprise but it’s something I’ve been thinking about. I recently decided to retire two of my premium courses, Blogging Success Program and The Passive Income System and they have already been removed from PE Courses sales page with effect immediately. I share why below.

The truth is that this has been a difficult decision to make. Up till two months ago, I was still planning for new runs for BSP and PIS and how to take them to the next level. Yet, I had been having some nagging feelings about them for a while, and when the feelings kept coming back, I realized it was time to give them serious thought. This was when I realized it was time to discontinue these two courses.

Top-line Stats on BSP/PIS

Firstly, some top-line stats and info:

• Both BSP and PIS are among the top earning courses at PE.
• I’ve been conducting BSP and PIS since December 2011 and July 2012 respectively.
• I’ve done six live runs for both courses over the past three years, with full signups for each run. I have also done significant content upgrades in this period, of which each upgrade was always offered free to earlier participants.
• The feedback has always been excellent. Participants would walk away from each class with many new ideas and next steps. One participant went from not knowing what he wanted to do for his business to knowing his business idea and confirming speaking engagements even before the course ended. Another did a major blog overhaul after attending BSP and started getting nearly 2K pageviews/day after a year, along with $500 USD/month in earnings. A business management participant said that she has “learned ideas that no business school [would] ever teach you.”
• Both courses are filled with my best, timeless frameworks and strategies on what it takes to achieve success in blogging and creating a passive income business respectively.

From a business and financial standpoint, it makes the most sense to continue BSP and PIS since they are top-earning courses. Yet, from an intuitive point, I feel it’s now time to pull the plug and move on to other projects. There are two big reasons why.

Why I’m Retiring BSP and PIS

Perhaps it’s easiest to start off with how these two courses came about. I started BSP in December 2011 (then known as Blogging Intensive Bootcamp) after frequent requests by clients and readers to start a course sharing my blogging tips. Following the end of that course, and after very strong feedback from participants, I then started PIS to teach my personal lessons on how to create your passive income business in July 2012.

I wasn’t thinking too much when I started those two courses, except that I saw the opportunity to support entrepreneurs / budding entrepreneurs and I ran ahead with it. As such, the first iteration of the courses were designed around the initial participants’ needs and knowledge gaps. Following that, I got new requests to do another run of BSP and PIS. Seeing the opportunity to again help new entrepreneurs, I then conducted new runs of BSP and PIS, this time significantly upgrading each course. This then continued on to a third run in the next year, again with another round of update.

In every course run, I poured my heart and soul into it, creating my best frameworks, coming up with easy-to-understand visuals, putting together case studies, and sharing important data and personal examples to drive my messages across.

While it has been a phenomenal experience working on these two courses, now that we’re at the 7th year mark of PE, I feel it’s time to take stock and bring my focus back to courses that build on the core of PE. I feel that I’ve achieved the original objectives that I set out to do with BSP and PIS, which were to share my best knowledge to participants who wished to learn about blogging / building a P.I. business and to set them up for long-term success in these areas, and what’s left is really for the participants to now take the knowledge they’ve learned and run ahead with it. Having conducted these courses for three years, it’s now time to move on to other projects that’ll get us back to PE’s core message.

The second reason is somewhat linked to the first. I’ve found that often times when people say that they want to learn X, it may well not be what they really need. For example, someone may sign up for a blogging course to learn about blogging — but what they may actually benefit from the most is to work on their life goals and bust through personal fears. Blogging may well not even be in the cards after all is said and done. Another example: someone may want to learn about earning P.I., but what they may really need is to figure out what they actually want to do and then to develop their career plan that best suits this message. Perhaps building a P.I. business is something that would only come in after three years, long after the person has pursued their passion and is already seeing healthy results.

At the end of the day, maybe only about 30-40% of participants who attend such a course are really there to learn about the technicalities of what it takes to succeed in this field and are ready to act on this knowledge, whereas the rest are more people who are here for the “ride,” to see if this could be the next big thing for them.

The problem is that as someone conducting a blogging or passive income course, I’m often bound by the scope of the topic. While I could weave in life skills and I actually do so in all my trainings whether they are self-help-related or not, the point is that it’s still a blogging or P.I. course at the end of the day and I have a curriculum to stick to. Herein lies the problem — I’m ultimately most passionate about coaching people to live their highest life. Coaching on blogging or earning passive income is merely a subset of this passion (no different than coaching people in presentation, resume, or networking skills, which I trained in in the early years of PE). While I can do a very good job coaching the nooks and crannies of blogging and building a P.I. business, ultimately I want to help people discover their best solutions and best paths for themselves — which, depending on each person and their goals, may well not involve blogging or P.I. at the end of the day.

So in short, after three years of passionately conducting BSP and PIS and supporting many in their blogging/P.I. goals, I feel that it’s time to retire them. They’re no longer compatible with what I wish to achieve at PE, and rather than continue to conduct them for another five or 10 years, it’s best to retire them now. Even though I’ll actually be losing out on an easy five-figure annual income source by doing so, I feel this is the right thing to do. I believe that by focusing myself on my higher goal to deliver maximum value to all of you, the right opportunities and money will come my way eventually.

BSP/PIS Members: Download Materials NOW (by Sep 30, 2015)

For those of you who were customers or past participants of BSP/PIS, don’t worry because you’ll get to download all the course materials before I close the members portal.

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for being a part of these courses, be it as a live participant or as a product customer. Everything that I packaged in the courses are truly my best strategies on blogging and creating a P.I. business, and I hope that you’ll study them carefully and apply them in your blogging/P.I. ventures ahead. Remember something that I always stress on in the courses, which is not to get sidetracked by short-term gains or tactics. Rather, focus on your big picture vision and delivering value to your audience. Apply the strategies I taught you; stop looking outward for “secrets” and “tricks” to get ahead; the answers are really all packed in these two courses. Review the materials and focus on action. You already have what it takes to succeed in your path. ♥

Next, login to the members portal to download the materials before I close the members portal for BSP/PIS.

1. If you are a live course participant, meaning you attended my blogging or passive income course in real time, you would have received access information to the members portal 1-2 weeks after the live course ended. Please check your email for the members portal login information.
2. If you are a product buyer, meaning you bought the pre-recorded blogging or passive income course from PE Courses, you would have received an email with the login access information right after payment.

This is obvious, but if you bought the blogging course only, you would only have access information for Blogging Success Program. If you bought the passive income course only, you would only have access information for The Passive Income System. These are two separate courses, not 1 single course.

Using the login information,

1. Login to the BSP/PIS members portal.
2. Download all the materials for your respective course ASAP, namely the video lectures, audio podcasts (PIS only), slides, and worksheets (PIS only), before Sep 30, 2015. The members portal will be taken offline after that. It doesn’t take more than 10 minutes to click the links and let them download onto your computer, so please do them sooner than later.
3. As part of your purchase, you are free to review the course(s) privately on your computer. It’s just that the members portal for these two courses will no longer exist after Sep 30, 2015, so please backup the files in your own storage like an external hard disk or Dropbox so that you don’t lose the files. Dropbox gives you two GB free space and another 1-2 GB free space when you complete certain actions so it’s pretty good.
4. Not that anyone of you would be doing this, but as with any digital product purchased on PE (or elsewhere really), you are not allowed to distribute, share, or re-sell the course files in part or in full with/to anyone. These materials are copyright of myself and PE. Your purchase warrants you the material for your private consumption as a consumer. Unlawful distribution can result in prosecution by law.

If you’ve lost your access to the members portal, email us via the customer contact form on our FAQs page with these four pieces of information: (1) The course you purchased, (2) your transaction ID, (3) your email used in your purchase, and (4) when you purchased this course. If you face any trouble accessing the portal, reach my customer support team at customercare [at] personalexcellence [dot] co too and we’ll do our best to help.

What’s Next?

For BSP and PIS, perhaps they may come back in a different form in the future, but I highly doubt so unless I segue into becoming a full-time blog, business, or wealth coach in the future which I don’t plan to do so. Some life coaches suddenly switch to business or wealth coaching after a few years (basically they are more lucrative careers), but it really isn’t in my interest or aspiration.

I will continue to speak on blogging or passive income in the public domain (talks, media) as invited or work with 1-1 clients on these topics, just that I don’t see myself conducting blogging or P.I. courses with such regularity or depth on PE.

In the meantime, I hope all of you are well and I miss you guys! :) Know that I’m constantly thinking of new ideas to improve PE and support all of us in our life journey, and I appreciate all your support for PE! Please keep reading and sharing the material; I promise new and exciting things ahead for us!